Formerly homeless and now the voice behind Eating Richly: Even When You’re Broke, Diana Johnson talks about eating healthily on a shoestring, the hidden hungry, and teaching people to cook cheaply and well.

Find the latest on sustainable seafood practices — along with seafood cookbook recommendations, recipes, and advice on choosing sustainable seafood too — in the summer issue of Edible East Bay magazine.

Sarah Henry has the arduous task of reporting from the field following a week’s stay at the much-loved Ranch La Puerta fitness resort and spa, which also features an organic garden and culinary school.

Vanessa Barrington dishes up unfussy, homemade fare in her new cookbook D.I.Y. Delicious: Recipes and Ideas for Simple Foods from Scratch. Ever wondered how to make kitchen staples like pickles, yogurt, or bread? Then this may well be the book for you.

Fresh starts. New adventures. The whole unexplored landscape that is the year ahead. I welcome January, when anything seems possible. Except, of course, when there’s transition week. Anyone else having a transition week? Come on, you know you are. I can see it in my son as he struggles to get back in synch with […]

Flickr photo by cbcastro courtesy Creative Commons attribution license. Since I spent two hours Monday outside in the freezing cold chatting with a couple of West Marin farmers as they cut, cleaned, and boxed some bodacious-looking brussels sprouts (more on the growers at Gospel Flat Farm later this week), I thought it timely to weigh […]

Hello peeps. I know many of you are busy prepping for the annual American food fest, so I won’t keep you long. First, full disclosure: I do not (heart) the holidays. And nothing announces the official start of the festive season than Thanksgiving. Well, I guess there’s also Halloween, the end of daylight savings, the […]

It’s always tricky to write about a pal’s book, you don’t want to come off sounding like a fawning friend, frankly. So, in the case of My Nepenthe by Romney “Nani” Steele, I’m going to let others hand out the praise. Sunset describes Nani’s cookbook-cum-memoir as “a valentine to one of the most beautiful places […]

I’ll be blunt: I had low expectations. I’d detected no buzz about the SF Fab Food Fest beforehand. And I couldn’t find a list of food sellers online. The venue, the Concourse Exhibition Center, didn’t look promising either. Three strikes right there. But it wasn’t out of my way so I stopped by en route […]

How many of you have found those email chain letters in your inbox asking you to share a recipe with a dozen or so others? How many of you actually respond? I’m not entirely sure why, but I never seem to reply to these recipe requests (sorry Anne, Katherine, Ellen, et al.) and wind up […]

Photo by Flickr user mbgrigby used under the Creative Commons license. So it’s orientation time for the sixth graders, a sweet and chatty bunch, at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, where I volunteer each week. Last Friday, head kitchen teacher Esther Cook (yes, Ms. Cook is her real name) began by engaging the students in […]

The Lemon Lady needs a new nickname, methinks. Anna Chan, 37, has outgrown the title, which doesn’t begin to describe the difference this anti-hunger activist has made in less than a year in her one-woman campaign to get fresh produce into the mouths of people in need in her community. This stay-at-home mom from Clayton, […]

Flickr photo by jcmurty used under the Creative Commons license. When you pop in and out of your homeland once or twice a year, as I do, it’s pretty easy to pick up on trends since you last touched down. I was in Sydney for a month this past Southern Hemisphere summer, that’s December-January for […]

Last Friday was the day I was supposed to meet Blessing Horowytz, creator of Kale Chips, my current favorite snack food. Here’s what happened: Multi-tasking mama that I am, I decided to quell my cravings for Kale Chips (not to be confused with roasted kale) and satisfy my curiosity about the brand new Berkeley Bowl […]

I’ve been waxing on a lot lately in this space about food films and food books. And I’ve been digging doing blogs about resourceful residents who grow and forage in the urban jungle. But it’s time to talk about cooking again. The weather has turned positively balmy in Berkeley this week and we’re heading into […]

True confession: When I’m home alone at night sometimes I forget to make dinner. Ten o’clock rolls around, the kitchen is closed, and so I grab a bowl of cereal and call it a night. Terrible habit I know. At least it’s whole grain cereal. It turns out, I’m in good company. Here’s another cereal-for-solo […]

I knew trouble was brewing. The ol’ scratchy throat, lethargy, and pounding headache were all clues. So I started sipping lemon-honey-herbal tea, downed Airborne, Emergen-C, and some Chinese immune-boosting pills a pal slipped in my purse, wrapped my neck in a warm scarf, and tried to rest. I was determined to ward off whatever dreaded […]

Would you attend a free cooking class if your child’s school offered one? The good folks who run the cooking and gardening programs in my kid’s school district provide five-week parent nutrition classes in the spring. The evening program reinforces instruction about healthy eating these parents’ children receive at public school — and helps time-challenged […]

Photo: Sarah Henry Spring Break plans went pear-shaped, work and other obligations thwarted my best efforts to plan a mini-break with my son. I was feeling a bit sorry for him (truth be told: both of us). We were just going to tool around town during his week off. It didn’t help that others in […]

So my ten-year-old plays ball for the Berkeley Bears. Last weekend, his team went up against the San Francisco Falcons. It would have been just another baseball game on a gorgeous spring day except he played against his great mate from the mamas group we started right after the kids were born. Photo: Yuriko Gamo […]

It’s been a stellar week or two for the good food folks. Alice appeared on 60 Minutes espousing her delicious revolution. (What took CBS so long?) Michelle Obama broke ground on a White House victory garden. (But why doesn’t Barack like beets and how can we convince him these root veggies are divine?) And, where […]